Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts

May 26, 2012

Warnings: When It's Not Just "Crying Wolf"

There is a famous saying that "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana 

An editorial appeared in the Wall Street Journal (10 April 2012) by French philosopher Pascal Bruckner called "The Ideology of Catastrophe" that accuses those who warn others of danger as having "tiny minds who wish us suffering."

This "philosopher" maligns both Jewish prophets and Christian "millenarian movements" for having "no function other than indignation...and [the Prophet] becomes intoxicated with his own words and claims a legitimacy with no basis."

Mr. Bruckner must be completely clueless of those throughout history that have sought to warn us of dangers that if the world would but have listened, untold numbers of millions could have been saved. 

From the earliest of times, there have been warnings about pending catastrophes and those that paid attention were able to make a difference. 

In the Torah (Bible), G-d warned Noah of the impending flood, and Noah was able to save humankind and animals--2 by 2 they went unto the ark for 40 days and nights of pouring rain that vanquished the earth.

In the Prophets, G-d has Yonah (after being swallowed by the whale) warn the the inhabitants of Nineveh to repent and prevents them and their city from destruction. 

In the 20th century, if only the world had paid attention to the genocidal desires of maniacs like Adolph Hitler (may his name be cursed) in books like Mein Kampf, how many tens of millions may have been spared. 

In terms of the advent of nukes and other weapons of mass destructions, to at least some extent people and governments have listened to warning and retreated from a philosophy of mutually assured destruction (MAD) to instead move toward anti-proliferation, arms reduction treaties, and other safeguards, and we have thank G-d been able to avoid major catastrophes from these dangers. 

Thankfully, with dire medical issuances about various diseases, pandemics, and even warning about the dangers of obesity, smoking, and drinking, we have been able to curb harmful behaviors, promote healthier living, and lengthen life spans.

Similarly, with environmental warnings, we have been able to create awareness and educate people on more sustainable living--through conservation, recycling, reuse, as well as renewable energy sources, and more. 

Moreover, warnings about runaway spending and the national deficit have been heard for decades, but having ignored these for the most part, we now face a $16,000,000,000,000 bill and growing rapidly--soon coming due to future generations of Americans.  And we are already witnessing the effects--inflation, unemployment, default, and perhaps succession from the Euro and the EU itself--of countries on the other side of the Atlantic that have made the similar errors in their wild spending ways.

While some corporate, religious, and political leaders do use fear tactics to gain power or whatever they are personally-seeking that does not make every warning false and malevolent. 

Certainly, at the other end of the spectrum, some people would rather live in denial of any issues and pretend that everything is just hunky-dory all the time. 

Bruckner does makes some superficial and one-sided arguments--denouncing warnings and claiming that:

- Warnings cause fear, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

- Warnings "though they try to awaken us...eventually deadens us."

- People who warn "do not [really] intend to warn us as much as to condem us."

- Leaders issue warnings "to dazzle us in order to make us docile."

Unfortunately, Bruckner has failed to distinguish between fear-mongering and fact. 

Bruckner missed the point of how real warnings can help people--which is through changing hearts, minds, and behaviors. 

1) Fear is not a self-fulfilling prophecy unless people do not act in time to change dangerous and irresponsible behaviors.

2) Genuine warnings do not deaden those who seek truth and a way forward--it only deadens those who are unwilling or unable to adapt. 

3) People who warn based on facts and with sincerity to help others do not wish to condem us--rather they wish to alleviate unnecessary suffering.

4) Leaders who issue warnings to alert people to very real dangers out there in order to seek safety or change course are not trying to dazzle and make docile, but rather they seek to save lives by creating awareness, educating, and empowering people to change before it is too late.

Some people understand well from history as well as from common sense that our behaviors have consequences--other do not. 

For me, when we stray into dangerous waters, I am glad for the true heros out there looking out for us and helping guide us live better and longer lives. 

While it is good to be critical of unfounded warnings and charlatans, it is necessary to have warnings that are grounded in fact, given sincerely, not forced on others, and help people stay successfully on the road to health, prosperity, and human rights.

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Alex Peruso)

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April 28, 2012

Governing the Internet Commons

Recently, I've been watching a terrific series called America: The Story of Us (12 episodes)--from the History Channel. 

It is a beautiful portrayal of the the founding and history of America.

One theme though that repeats again and again is that as a nation, we use the common resources and deplete them until near exhaustion. 

The show portrays an America of lush forests with billions of trees that are chopped down for timber, herds of 30 million buffalo slaughtered for their hides, rollings plains of cotton for a thriving clothing industry that is over-planted, a huge whaling industry used for oil that is over-fished.  

Unfortunately, as we know, the story is not just historical, but goes on to modern-day times, with fisheries depleted, whole species of animals hunted to extinction, energy resources furiously pumped and mined to a foreseen depletion, city streets turned into slushy slums, and national forests carelessly burned down, and more. 

The point is what is called the "Tragedy of the Commons"--where items held in trust for everyone is misused, overused, and ultimately destroyed. With private property, people are caretakers with the incentive to maintain or raise the value to profit later. However, with common property, people grab whatever they can now, in order to profit from it before someone else gets it first. 

This phenomenon was first laid out in the Torah (Bible) with a law for a "Shabbath Year" called Shmita mandating that people let fields (i.e agriculture) lie fallow for a full year every 7 years and similarly, the law of Jubilee (i.e. Yovel), that slaves be freed and loans forgiven every 50 years. I think that the idea is to regulate our personal consumption habits and return what the historical 
"commons" back to its normal state of freedom from exploitation.  

This notion was echoed by ecologist Garrett Harden in the journal Science in 1968, where he described European herders overgrazing common land with their cows to maximize their short-term individual profits at the expense of longer-term term societal benefits. Harden suggested that regulation or privatization can help to solve the "Tragedy of the Commons." 

In the 21st century, we see the modern equivalent of the commons with the Internet, which is an open, shared networking resource for our computing and telecommunications.Without protection, we have the Wild West equivalent with things like spam, malware, and attacks proliferating--clogging up the network and causing disruptions and destruction, and where some people use more than their fair share 

Here are some examples of the Tragedy of the Internet:

- Symantec reports that even with spam decreasing with the shutdown of spam-hosting sites, in 2011, it is still 70% of all emails.

- McAfee reports that malware peaked as of the first half of 2010, with 10 million new pieces.

- Kaspersky reports that web-based attacks were up to 580 million in 2010--8 times the amount of the previous year.

- Verizon Wireless reports 3% of their users use 40% of their bandwidth.

If we value the Internet and want to continue using and enjoying it, then like with our other vital resources, we need to take care of it through effective governance and prudent resource management.  

This means that we do the following:

1) Regulation--manage the appropriate use of the Internet through incentives and disincentives for people to behave civilly online. For example, if someone is abusing the system sending out millions or billions of spam messages, charge them for it!

2) Privatization--create ownership over the Internet. For example, do an Internet IPO and sell shares in it--so everyone can proverbially, own a piece of it and share financially in it's success (or failures). 

3) Security Administration--enhance security of the Internet through public and private partnership with new tools, methods, and advanced skills sets. This is the equivalent of sending out the constable or sheriff to patrol the commons and ensure people are doing the right thing, and if not then depending on who the violating actor(s) are take appropriate law enforcement or military action.

Only by managing the Internet Commons, can we protect this vital resource for all to use, enjoy, and even profit by. 

(Source Photo: here)

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April 27, 2012

Securing The Internet: A Historical Perspective

This week, I had the opportunity take a great class in Cyber Security / Information Assurance.

As part of the class, we had to do a team project and my part was to present a brief history of the Internet and how this best positions the Federal Government to take the lead in securing the Internet.

Here is my part of the presentation:

Good morning. I am Andy Blumenthal, and I am here to talk with you today about the wealth of historical experience that the U.S. Federal Government has with managing the Internet and why we are best positioned to govern the security of it in partnership with the private sector and international community.

As you’ll see on the timeline, the U.S. Government has played a major role in virtually every development with the Internet from inventing it, to building it, and to governing it, and it is therefore, best prepared to lead in securing it.

It all started with the invention of the Internet by the government.

Starting in 1957 with the Sputnik Crisis, where the Soviets leaped ahead of us in putting the first satellite in Earth’s orbit—this caused great fear in this country and ultimately led to a space and technology race between us and the Soviet Union.

As a result of this, in 1958, the U.S. Government established the Advanced Research Projects Agency (or ARPA) to advance our technology superiority and prevent any future technology surprises.

In 1962, ARPA created the Information Process Techniques Office (IPTO) for enhancing telecommunications for sharing ideas and computing resources.

Finally in 1964, the concept of the Internet was founded with the publication by RAND (on contract with the Air Force) of “On Distributed Communications,” which essentially invented the idea of a distributed computing network (i.e. the Internet) with packet switching and no single point of failure.  This was seen as critical in order to strengthen the U.S. telecomm infrastructure for survivability in the event of nuclear attack by the Soviets.

The Internet era was born!

The U.S. government then set out to build this great Internet.

In 1968, ARPA contracted for first 4 nodes of this network (for $563,000).

Then in 1982, after 8 years of antitrust litigation, the U.S. government oversaw the breakup of AT&T into the Baby Bells in order to ensure competition, value, and innovation for the consumer.

In 1983, ARPANET split off MILNET, but continued to be linked to it through TCP/IP.

In 1987, the National Science Foundation (NSF) built a T1 “Internet Backbone” for NSFNET hooking up the nation’s five supercomputers for high-speed and high capacity transmission.

And in 1991, the National Research and Education Network (NREN, a specialized ISP) was funded for a five-year contract with $2 billion by Congress to upgrade the Internet backbone.

At this point, the Internet was well on its way!

But the U.S. government’s involvement did not end there, after inventing it and building it, we went on to effectively govern it. 

In 2005, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) issued the Internet Policy Statement (related to Net Neutrality) with principles to govern an open Internet—where consumers are entitled to choice of content, apps, devices, and service providers.

And now, most recently, in 2012, we have a proposed bill for the Cybersecurity Act to ensure that companies share cyber security information through government exchanges and that they meet critical infrastructure protection standards.

You see, the government understands the Internet, it’s architecture, it’s vulnerabilities, and has a long history with the Internet from its invention, to its building, and its governance.

It only makes sense for the government to take the lead in the security of the Internet and to balance this effectively with the principles for an open Internet.   

Only the government can ensure that the private sector and our international partners have the incentives and disincentives to do what needs to be done to secure the Internet and thereby our critical infrastructure protection.

Thank you for your undivided attention, and now I will now turn it over to my colleague who will talk to you about the legal precedents for this. 

(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)

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August 4, 2011

Google+ And A History of Social Media

Ten_commandments

Bloomberg Business (25-31 July 2011) tells in biblical terms the history of social media leading up to the recent release of Google+:

"In the beginning, there was Friendster; which captivated the web'ites before it was smitten by slow servers and exiled to the Far East. And then a man called Hoffman begat LinkedIn, saying "This name shall comfort professionals who want to post their resumes online," and Wall Street did idolize it. And then Myspace lived for two thousand and five hundred days and worshipped flashy ads and was subsumed by News Corp., which the L-rd hath cursed. And Facebook emerged from the land of Harvard and forsook the flashy ads for smaller ones and welcomes vast multitudes of the peoples of the world. And it was good."

With the "genesis" of Google+, there is now a new contender in virtual land with a way to share posts, pictures, videos, etc. with limited groups--or circles of friends--and an advance in privacy features has been made.

According to the article, even Mark Zuckerberg and some 60 other Facebook employees have signed up for Google+.

With all this confusion brewing in social media land, one wonders exactly why Randi Zuckerberg (Mark's sister) recently headed for the exits--a better offer from Google? :-)

Google+ has many nice features, especially in terms of integration with everything else Google. On one hand, this is a plus in terms of potential simplicity and user-centricity, but on the other hand it can be more than a little obtrusive and scary as it can \link and share everything from from your profile, contacts, pictures (Picasa), videos (YouTube), voice calls (Google Voice), geolocation (Google Maps), Internet searches, and more.

Google owns a lot of Internet properties and this enables them to bundle solutions for the end-user. The question to me is will something as basic as Circles for grouping friends really help keep what's private, private.

It seems like we are putting a lot of information eggs in the Google basket, and while they seem to have been a force for good so far, we need to ensure that remains the case and that our privacy is held sacred.

(Source Photo, With All Due Respect To G-d: here)

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May 22, 2011

Peace and Security

With all the questions about peace in the Middle East, there is a lot of enthusiasm for a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, living side-by-side in peace.
This is a practical vision that would resolve a lot of suffering and enable us to move constructively forward.
It may be hard to understand why Israel needs very specific conditions to protect itself, but this video sent to me by a friend explains it very well.
In a historical perspective, I think it is important to be aware of the context of the Jewish security concerns as well:
1) Six million Jews (ONE out of every THREE men, women, and children) were murdered in the Holocaust just last century.

2) Tens of thousands more were lost in numerous wars to overtake Israel (in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, 2006, 2008 and in the Intifada's).

3) Mid-East neighbors (that support terrorist organizations--like Hamas, Hezbollah and more) do not even recognize Israel's right to exist, and are chartered to their ultimate destruction.
As a Jewish American, I too share, pray, and hope for peace in the Middle East...let it be so as a genuine and lasting one.
While Middle East peace often seems impossible, G-d can do what we think is impossible.
(All opinions are my own)

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January 30, 2011

Computer History Museum - Check IT Out!



I am very excited about the Computer History Museum housed in Mountain View, CA. (Silicon Valley) since 2002 (although I don't think that their overview video necessarily does it justice).
The computer museum was recently revamped with a $19 million renovation in large part from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
According to BusinessWeek (Jan. 31-Feb. 6 2011), "the museum documents the rise not only of computers but also of technology over thousands of years."
The museum and nearby research warehouse include a collection of over 100,000 artifacts and describe "how we came of age" from a technology perspective.
Innovation is critical to where we are going to, but history is from where we are coming and from which we must preserve and learn--the Computer History Museum is the bridge between the two and can educate as well as inspire.
While I personally have not made it to the exhibits yet, I look forward to getting there soon.
And when I am there, I want to wander the halls and ponder at how all the "bits and bytes" from so many great minds have helped to transform our lives, and where things go next.

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August 30, 2009

Privacy vs. Exhibitionism

We are a nation torn between on one hand wanting our privacy safeguarded and on the other hand wanting to share ourselves openly and often on the Internet—through Social Media, e-Commerce, e-mail, and so forth.

These days, we have more information about ourselves available to others than at any time in history. We are information exhibitionists—essentially an open book—sharing virtually everything about ourselves to everybody.

Online, we have our personal profile, photos, videos, likes and dislikes, birth date, addresses, email and phone contacts, employer, resume, friends and family connections, banking information, real estate transactions, legal proceedings, tax returns, and more. We have become an open book to the world. In a sense we have become an exhibitionistic nation.

While we continue to friend, blog, tweet, and post our thoughts, feelings, and personal information online, we are shocked and dismayed when there is a violation of our privacy.

How did we get to this point—here are some major milestones on privacy (in part from MIT Technology Review--July/August 2009):

1787—“Privacy” does not appear in Constitution, but the concept is embedded in protections such as “restrictions of quartering soldiers in private homes (Third Amendment), prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure (Fourth Amendment), prohibition against forcing a person to be a witness against himself (Fifth Amendment).

1794—Telegraph invented

1876—Telephone invented

1890—Boston Lawyers Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis wrote in Harvard Law Review of “the right to be let alone” and warned that invasive technologies threatened to take “what was whispered in the closet” and have it “proclaimed from the house-tops.”

1914Federal Trade Commission Act prohibits businesses from engaging in “unfair or deceptive acts or practices”; has been extended to require companies to write privacy policies describing what they do with personal information they collect from customers and to honor these policies.

1934Federal Communications Act limits government wiretapping

1969—ARPANet (precursor to Internet) went live

1970Fair Credit Reporting Act regulates collections, dissemination, and use of consumer information, including credit information

1971—First e-mail sent.

1973—Code of Fair Information Practices limits secret data banks, requires that organizations ensure they are reliable and protected from unauthorized access, provides for individuals to be able to view their records and correct errors.

1974—Privacy Act prohibits disclosure of personally identifiable information from federal agency.

1988—Video Privacy Protection Act protects against disclosure of video rentals and sales.

1996—Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) protects against disclosures by health care providers.

1999Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems states: “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.”

2000—Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act prohibits intentional collections of information from children 12 or younger

2001—USA Patriot Act expands government’s power to investigate suspected terrorism acts

2003—Do Not Call Implementation Act limits telemarketing calls

2006—Google Docs release for creating and editing docs online

2009—Facebook 4th most popular website in the world

As anyone can see, there is quite a lot of history to protecting privacy. Obviously, we want to be protected. We need to feel secure. We fear our information being misused, exploited, or otherwise getting out of our control.

Yet, as technology progresses, the power of information sharing, collaboration, and online access is endlessly enticing as it is useful, convenient, and entertaining. We love to go online and communicate with people near and far, conduct e-commence for any product near seamlessly, and work more and more productively and creatively.

The dichotomy between privacy and exhibitionism is strong and disturbing. How do we ensure privacy when we insist on openness?

First, let me say that I believe the issue here is greater than the somewhat simplistic answers that are currently out there. Obviously, we must rely on common sense + technology.

From a common sense perspective, we need to personally safeguard truly private information—social security numbers and mother’s maiden name are just the obvious. We need not only be concerned about distinct pieces of information, but information in the aggregate. In other words, individual pieces of information may not be easily exploitable, but when aggregated together with other publically available information—you may now be truly exposed.

In terms of technology, we need to invest more time, money, and effort into securing our systems and networks. Unfortunately, businesses are more concerned with quarterly revenue and profit targets than with securing our personal information. We have got to incentivize every business, organization, and government entity to put security and privacy first. Just like we teach our children, “safety first”, we need to change our adult priorities as well or risk serious harm to ourselves and our nation from cyber criminals, terrorisms, and hostile nation states.

But the real issue is, why do we continue to treat technology as if it is more secure and private than it truly is? In a sense, we shut our eyes to the dangers that we know are lurking, and tell ourselves “it only happens to somebody else.” How do we curb our enthusiasm for technological progress with a realism of recognizing the very real dangers that persist?


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